First of all, I have to tell you that I am SO sore from my Spartacus workout on Wednesday. Ouch. That is all I have to say.

Next, as you followers know, I had a pretty stressful couple of weeks of school (those new to the blog and who want to read about it can go here and here). This meant that just about every other facet of my life got a little less attention these past few weeks (sorry, Eric!), including my meal planning.

Eric was great and offered to grocery shop for us last weekend (although it actually makes me sad not to be able to go…is that weird?), but I didn’t have time to do my usual meal planning. Most weekends I sit down and write out the ingredients from recipes I’ve seen that week that I want to try, or recipes that we haven’t had in a while (or, if I haven’t bookmarked any during the week, which is rare, I’ll search for new ones:), so I can get them on my weekend grocery shopping trips.

I also like to make big batches of things like soup, chili, muffins, etc. to have for the week. Having good food on hand to bring for lunch every day makes my life SO much easier (and saves us money!:).

But, neither the meal planning nor the cooking of big batches of food happened this week. So this week was a lot of throwing random things together. But you know what, it just goes to show that even when you’re short on time (and ingredients/recipes), you can still eat (fairly) well (I don’t like to claim that I am some sort of healthy eating saint…I know there are plenty of people out there who eat a LOT healthier than I do:).

Most of my breakfasts this week consisted of throwing random things in oatmeal, which is always yummy:)

If you’re noticing a theme with the cranberries here, you have no idea. I put them on everything this week. Including some of the food you’ve already seen, like my chicken, laughing cow cheese, spinach, and cranberry wrap; and my banana hammocks:).

For dinners this week I also had to just figure it out as I went. Early in the week I decided to make some baked ziti with chicken (I just broiled the chicken with some Italian herbs and chopped it up and put it in a lasagna pan with some noodles (they were rigatoni, actually, because that’s what I had in my cupboard!), pasta sauce, and mozzarella cheese). It was delicious and lasted us all week!

We also ate a lot of canned veggies (they’re still great for you!) and microwaved sweet potatoes–both of which are fast and easy in a pinch (ie, when you haven’t planned your meals.

Thursday night I was craving a salad, but the only “normal” salad ingredients we had was spinach and mushrooms. Not very exciting. So instead I decided to get creative and throw a bunch of things together. I put some eggs on the stove while I showered after my workout, and made some tuna salad when I (and the eggs) was done. Then I added some cottage cheese (I had never tried this before, but have seen other people do it–I approve!), tangerine, cranberries (more cranberries!), almonds, and topped it with tuna salad. It was amazing, and no dressing needed!

And finally, for the pièce de résistance, I made some amazing beet and couscous salad on Friday! Okay, so this was not with whatever was in my cupboard. After turning my final midterm in on Thursday I finally had some time on Friday to pick up some groceries for a recipe I was dying to try (it’s like I’m a recipe addict or something?).

This recipe is from Athlete’s Plate. I couldn’t find golden beets (if anyone knows where to find them, please let me know. I can’t wait for the farmer’s market to start up again in May!), so I just replaced those with more red beets. We ate the salad over some spinach, and with a side of pork (like how I think of my meat as a side…that’s because this dish was just that amazing).

Seriously guys, my photography skills do NOT do this salad justice. It was UNBELIEVABLE. Even my meat-loving, action-movie-watching husband loved it! Israeli couscous (which I didn’t even know existed until yesterday), beets, goat cheese, cranberries….*DROOL*. Seriously…go make it now….I mean NOW! (It also is vegetarian friendly! I used chicken broth because it was what I had, but the recipe calls for vegetable broth.)

You’ll notice I did my long run on Friday instead of Saturday, that’s because today I am off to Charlottesville, VA (again:), this time to celebrate my best friend’s bachelorette party! Nothing beats celebrating being done with midterms with a bunch of your girl friends! Don’t worry, I won’t have too much fun…I’ve got a long brick workout on Sunday and my sprint tri the following weekend! Woo!:)
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What are your go-to recipes for when you’re short on time/ingredients/preparation/etc?

When are you going to make the beet salad?
-Seriously, it is so amazing. My one concern with going away today is that Eric will eat all of the leftovers. I hope he saves me some!